nz part six ..wellington city

sneak peek at the theme for the coming entry.. queen charlotte sounds from aboard the deck of the wellington to picton interislander ferry... beautiful deep blue!

okok for this entry we'll take a hiatus from the usual nature and more nature themes and dive straight into the city...urbanization!!

wellington city.. Victoria uni of wellington law school..elvin's hangout perhaps lol



frosted glass panels inside Te Papa, the wellington museum that's really quite impressively comprehensive in terms of variety of exhibits.

Te Papa from the outside

The Museum Hotel opposite Te Papa ..note the luscious green moss covering the lower face of the main wall towards us..wonderful contrast man..

Near the city harbour..jy in the foreground

interesting lamp-post along the harbour

monstrous slide that appeared freaky even to us adults..and yet this was meant for kids under the age of ten .. won't it be like a nightmarish experience for those kids? macam giant water slide without the water in those theme parks.. jy in the process of going down the slide without getting stuck halfway lol

sculpture along the wharves

yet another sculpture..abstraction huh...

inside the corridors of the cathedral beside parliament house

the cathedral itself..pity the light flare

the nz 'beehive'..main parliamentary building..damn ugly architecture but unique nonetheless

anyone can take a typical postcard shot..this one was taken from atop the botanic gardens..we took the cable car to the summit... yes it looks more like a tram but it's called a cable car though... vintage cable car

feeding ducks in the botanic gardens

taken from a tombstone, in a cemetary right smack within the botanic gardens..albeit towards the borders of the entire place..the botanic gardens are HUGE

This wasn't taken by me but i thought it may serve as good evidence of how late the sun set in nz when we were there..note the time on the clock: past 8.30PM, but yet it was still so bright that this shot could be taken without flash lol... ps, ww and jy..the CPF trio again : Coloured Plastic Frames threesome hahahahahaa

again, I didn't take this shot... shows us girls posing around the distal extensions aka 'legs' of some totally weird-looking metallic structure we found near our hostel(basebackpackers').. resembles something that emerged from the movie A.I... or maybe the matrix..who knows...

nz part five..lakes waterfalls mountains etc

am uploading all these pics from school right now.. time's running out ..am in the arts libr media corner hehh so had better make it quick... will give more details in the future when got time...



Christine Falls in Fiordland National Park

opaque turquoise lake(forgot the name!!) fed by glacial melt.. so beautiful! pity the developing fault at top left corner

more of the wondrous opaque lake..supposed to see Mt Cook and Mt Tasman in the background..and no the mountains aren't photoshopped..they're 100% REAL

Reflective Mirror lake..Waihia i think

More of the reflective mirror lake..pity the ripples..otherwise one can see a perfect mirror reflection of the southern alps

sheer majestia of the southern alps

awestruck and utterly cowed

stream tinted brown by tannins from fallen vegetation

tussock grasses in the pristine white beaches

wow lol

just look at the blue of the sea man..where in sgp can you get to see such a fantastic colour?

view from knight's point lookout

Lake nelson

crystal clear alpine waters..note the people collecting the fresh mountain waters below

close up of the previous waterfall =P

Lake Wanaka

Lake Wakatia..third largest in nz..also the LONGEST...beautiful blue sheen


approaching lake wakatia from the bus..en route to wanaka

nz part four..the flower special hurhur

orange rose from lady norwood rose garden


lovely rose spotted in the same garden as the following flowers on the way to christchurch




spotted these in someone's garden when the kiwi exp bus stopped for a toilet break on the way to christchurch..lovely eh??



don't know the name of this flower but it never failed to fascinate me each time I walked to the bus stop in Howick.. a whole bush of this magnificently pretty flower is especially memorable a sight..love the rich deep maroon/red venations on the petals


Brilliant red inflorescence of Metrosideros excelsa, or aka pohutukawa in maori..learnt a hell lot about this native nz flower from that Pacific biogeog course.. turns out the seeds of pohutukawa are incredibly hardy, being able to withstand sub zero temperatures at freezingly high altitudes... needless to say the seeds are wind-dispersed, often by high speed jet streams... sorry the picture's somewhat out of focus because the winds were damn strong that day and I was using iso200 film..hardly sufficient to capture speed unlike iso400 I guess



lavender; a shrub very common in the nz suburbs


yar yar I know there are heliconias as well in Singapore..but I just felt like taking a shot of it, cannot is it? lol



cherry blossoms in mid-spring..sakuraaaa

nz part three(many more parts to go =P)

very wet early morning at half moon bay..aboard the shipping ferry bound for waiheke island.. I remember I had missed the fuller's ferry by a few minutes that time.. so had to settle for the next best alternative of the shipping ferry, which was meant to transport vehicles(and their passengers) to the same island.. quite weird..I was like the only passenger without a vehicle..at least the hot chocolate was free . Really rainy morning, overcast sky..so when i saw abit of the sun that sort of cast some light over the general pallor, I just felt that I had to capture that moment... afterwards the ferry took like forever to reach the island..I had expected a trip that would take at most 45 min but it took about an hour more..and to make things worse it docked at a place miles away from where the others had arranged to meet(they took a different ferry from the city ).. had to hitchhike a ride to the marketplace .. luckily the kiwi driver was nice enough =P

vast greens of waiheke island..this picture does no justice to the actual expanse of the green plains yar..*hint*need really wide angle lens to capture it..dark spot at the topleft is probably due to a developing fault..sheesh..colours not as rich ..probably because it was a cloudy day... intermittent showers and such..

Funny sign in waiheke island... as yf exclaimed in response to this sign,"Tootsie!!!" lol the owner of this sign was also the owner of the horses you might be able to spot in the background

no end in sight..we waited almost an hour for the silly bus and decided that walking may well be faster... our spirits were more or less as dampened as the weather then..never never trust the frequency of any bus service in nz, especially those on small islands away from the mainland..so much for purchasing the unlimited bus trip ticket =P

cc and jy pausing in the midst of the seeming endless walk to the vineyards to leave their mark on my slr lens

daryl and the winery cat that couldn't keep still.. focus is on the cat, which was an absolutely epitome of cuteness, and not the someone holding it up =P the cat eats cheese!!

starfish we found stranded along the waiheke beach..seems like the creature had several previous limb regeneration events before...

nz part two..the glaciers

Approaching the Franz Josef glacier, so-called 'warm' glacier; rapid glacier melt gives rise to vegetation in close proximity... i think =P

Franz Josef glacier terminal face..note the stream of people exploring it..probably people who signed up for the same package with the same glacier hiking company .. we all wore identical blue waterproof attire. Really gloomy day with frequent showers, but that didn't douse the majesty of the glacier though.

I didn't take this shot but personally, I thought it was quite hilariously well composed lol.. ps jy and ww squashed between two gigantic blocks of ice..or rather in a narrow ice crevice.. ps and jy looking particularly squeezy but all three happy nonetheless hehe..we were on the 3/4 day Glacier explorer hike.. just a whole lot of hiking up and around the ice formations.. trudging around with leaden cramptons clamped onto our iceboots for better grip on the ice..could have been better if the weather let up abit and allowed us to take more photos..but alas, it kept pouring and that dampened our motivation to whip out the cams.. as you can see from the pic all of our outer raincoats are drenched from the precipitation.. the franz josef region gets 7-8m of rainfall annually gosh..

the kea, or some nz native alpine parrot that hung around us from the midst of the ice formations to the bottom of the terminal face.. the misty look of this picture is because of the drizzle and slight condensation on the lens ..

brief look at the Fox glacier..note the emerald waters of glacier melt below...

nz pics part one

As promised I will share with you all some of the better nz pics after I returned from that 5 month NZ adventure.. yes and here they are in full jpeg format for you all to see.. only certain selected pictures taken with my humble canon eos 300 film slr which i feel are worthy of sharing hehh.. not to mention that there are lots of photos very poorly taken in my opinion, over and under exposures(especially those taken of the mountains and ice on very bright days haiiiii)... will share with you all some pictures taken early on during the mid term break and during some of our weekend outings .. will post the latest travel ones subsequently..i'm posting this from my home computer so the internet's connection's pretty darn slow... therefore will only give you all a peek at a few pictures.. will put up more next few days when i go to school..internet's much faster there....

lone bird perched atop devonport clock tower..note the deep blue sky..so beautiful!

breakwater platform in devonport...once again the blue of the sky is 100% real..no photoshop!

view of auckland city harbour from aboard ferry to devonport..once again the blue is absolutely genuine! ahem though admittedly with abit of help from my skylight polarizer though heh...

Clambering to the top of mt.victoria in devonport..note how STEEP the grassy slopes were.. michelle in the foreground =P

one tree hill lol.. atop mt. victoria in devonport at dusk....

rangitoto island in the background.. it's a dormant volcano near auckland city i think

daisies from a neighbour's garden in early spring